Military reports 8 U.S. troop deaths in Iraq

Sunday

May 27, 2007 at 12:15 AM

Al-ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq — Iraq's prime minister and two top American officials flew to the blistering western desert Saturday in a rare joint outing to highlight gains there in the fight against insurgents, hours before the military reported the deaths of eight more U.S. troops.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Al-ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq — Iraq's prime minister and two top American officials flew to the blistering western desert Saturday in a rare joint outing to highlight gains there in the fight against insurgents, hours before the military reported the deaths of eight more U.S. troops.

One of those killed, a Marine, died in combat in Anbar province, once the site of some of the fiercest fighting in the country — and where the U.S. ambassador, the American commander in Iraq, and the Iraqi leader traveled Saturday.

The Sunni-dominated province has grown calmer in recent months with the flowering of a new alliance among Sunni tribal leaders, the Iraqi government and U.S.-led forces, but peace continues to be elusive — as the death Saturday of the Marine demonstrated.

"We are not saying Anbar province is all sweetness and light; there are still a lot of challenges," said Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander.

Meanwhile, new U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker — one of only a handful of U.S. diplomats who have held meetings with Iranians in the past quarter century — is set to tackle yet another challenge Monday when he opens a groundbreaking round of high-stakes encounters with an envoy from Tehran.

Crocker helped set up Iraq's provisional government following Saddam Hussein's fall. In Afghanistan, he reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kabul after the Taliban's collapse in 2001 and led sensitive negotiations with Iran.

This time, it is about the enormous complexities of trying to restore security to Iraq.

Though Crocker and analysts have played down expectations for the talks, many say the veteran U.S. diplomat brings the right measures of expertise and finesse to the potentially history-making, one-on-one diplomatic exchange.

The two nations have taken part in several international groups over the years — and had clandestine ties during the infamous Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s — but have had extremely limited bilateral contacts since Washington broke ties after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Elsewhere on Saturday, three U.S. soldiers were killed in Salahuddin Province, north of Baghdad, when an explosion hit their patrol; another died in a roadside bombing in south Baghdad.

Late Friday, a soldier was killed in an ambush near Taji, north of the capital, and two other soldiers were hit by a roadside bomb on Wednesday in eastern Baghdad, the military said.

Americans have opened nearly 1,000 new graves to bury U.S. troops killed in Iraq since Memorial Day a year ago. The figure is telling — and expected to rise in coming months.

In the period from Memorial Day 2006 through Saturday, 972 soldiers and Marines died in Iraq. And with the Baghdad security operation now 3½ months old, even President Bush has predicted a difficult summer for U.S. forces.

"It could be a bloody — it could be a very difficult August," he said last week.

In his weekly radio address Saturday, President Bush urged Americans to use Memorial Day to rededicate themselves to fighting for freedom around the world and pray for the safety of U.S. troops serving overseas.

"In Iraq and Afghanistan, millions have shown their desire to be free," Bush said. "We are determined to help them secure their liberty."

But even as Pentagon planners search for ways to shift the Iraq mission from combat to support with fewer U.S. troops, Democrats plan to raise their pressure on President Bush to end U.S. involvement in the unpopular war.

Bush signed a war spending bill late Friday that does not set a date for U.S. troop withdrawals. It was a defeat for Democrats who want the president to start pulling troops out of Iraq — an idea roundly rejected by administration officials.

The New York Times reported Saturday that the administration is working on ideas for cutting U.S. forces in Iraq by as much as half, to roughly 100,000, by mid-2008.

Citing unidentified administration officials, the report said the mission for the additional combat troops Bush sent in January would be greatly scaled back to focus on training Iraqi troops and fighting al-Qaida.

Al-Qaida in Iraq is still active in Anbar — which includes the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi — and continues to launch devastating attacks, U.S. military officials said. On Thursday, insurgents exploded a car bomb on a passing funeral procession in Fallujah for a tribal leader opposed to al-Qaida. At least 26 mourners were killed.

Despite the security accomplishments, an al-Qaida front group affiliated with insurgent Sunnis warned President Bush on Saturday that the newly approved $95 billion in funds for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan would not improve Washington's chances for success.

"With God's help, the money will heal no wound and change nothing at all," said a statement issued by the Islamic State of Iraq and posted on a Web site commonly used by Islamic extremists. The statement's authenticity could not be verified.

As part of the U.S.-led security crackdown in Baghdad, American forces raided the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City early Saturday and captured a "suspected terrorist cell leader," who helped smuggle powerful, armor-piercing bombs from Iran, the U.S. military said in statement.

After the raid, around 2 a.m., U.S. and Iraqi forces called in air strikes on nine cars positioning themselves to attack American forces, killing five suspected militants, the military said.

An Iraqi police official said the strikes hit 10 cars in line to buy gasoline, killing three civilians and wounding eight others. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to release the information.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Petraeus had planned to travel Saturday to al-Qaim, an Anbar town on the Syrian border, to meet with tribal leaders and survey a $20 million border terminal under construction.

But low visibility prevented their aircraft from completing the trip, and they could only reach the al-Asad air base in Anbar.

So, with temperatures soaring above 100 degrees, al-Maliki and several of his Cabinet ministers met with the Anbar governor and police and army chiefs. Crocker and Petraeus, meanwhile, were briefed by local U.S. commanders.

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